Attackers using AI

Anthropic describes actors who automate whole intrusion chains with AI agents. One Russian-speaking espionage operator had agents rebuild malware whenever a security product detected it, and used AI to sort hundreds of gigabytes of stolen data.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actors

GTG-20006, Midnight Blizzard, GTG-50014, JackPoterz

Malware

PentAGI, WPPConnect, Embassy Kit, CaptiveCrunch

Attribution

Russia, per Anthropic (confidence not stated)

Also covered byAnthropic

Sophos CTU researchers found an underground forum persona advertising Luciferus, an uncensored AI service claiming to be a proprietary 120-billion-parameter model, though researchers assess with low confidence it is based on Qwen. The service offers tiered subscriptions and demonstrated willingness to generate malware code like a Python RAT, illustrating growing commercialization of uncensored AI in cybercrime market

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Optimus_Prime

Malware

Luciferus, WormGPT, FraudGPT

JFrog identified over 3,000 malicious RubyGems packages tied to the GemStuffer campaign, some exploiting a RubyGems legacy API-key caching flaw to steal credentials and others using XSS or template-injection payloads in package metadata. Naming patterns and prior incidents link the campaign to OpenAI Swarm agents generating packages at scale, though original prompts remain unavailable.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

OpenAI Swarm

Malware

slnleaker5, f2fe-s1, yardxabc889, southpxdatapp6pi, xss-test-gem, test-apex-gem, test-ssti-0, test-ssti-1

Genians analyzed 13 malicious LNK files linked to Kimsuky, part of an ongoing campaign called Operation GitPower using GitHub PAT-based C2 and PowerShell loaders. Metadata in decoy PDF documents showed traces of the AI coding agent 'opencode' and unreplaced placeholder text, indicating the actor used AI/LLMs to mass produce decoy documents without proper review.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Kimsuky

Unit 42 documents two active Latin American intrusion campaigns, one against Mexican/Ecuadorian government and transportation targets and one against Brazilian financial firms, where attackers used self-hosted NextChat instances and commercial LLMs like Claude and GPT-4.1 to troubleshoot scripts and build proxy tools. Exposed staging infrastructure showed AI-generated iterative filenames and prompt history, revealing

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

NextChat, SockTz

Gambit Security found Aurora ransomware operators using Cursor Agent with Claude Sonnet to run hands-on exploitation, including domain enumeration, NTLM relay, and certificate attacks, across ten victims. The group also deployed a new Linux ESXi ransomware variant and a separate cluster using S3 exfiltration infrastructure.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Aurora

Malware

Aurora, Cursor Agent, Claude Sonnet, NetExec, Impacket, Certipy, PetitPotam, Coerce Plus

Trail of Bits tested a preview of OpenAI's GPT 5.6-Cyber agent and had it attempt to escape a QEMU/KVM sandbox. The agent autonomously escaped three times, using a recently disclosed kernel bug, an unpatched libslirp flaw, and finally a chain of several previously unknown 0-days in QEMU, KVM, and libslirp, operating for roughly 12 hours with minimal human guidance. It failed to break out of the more hardened Firecrac

Category

AI-Enabled

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-53359, CVE-2026-9539

Cisco Talos documented a financially motivated, Chinese-speaking group, UAT-10147, using agentic AI tools like PentestGPT and DeepAudit alongside Metasploit and known CVEs to automate exploitation, reconnaissance, payload generation, and troubleshooting against Windows and Linux web servers worldwide. Talos assesses with moderate-to-high confidence this represents a shift from AI-assisted scripting to semi-autonomous

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

UAT-10147

Malware

QuasarRAT, EfsPotato, BadIIS, Gh0stCringe, SPECTRE, NoodleRAT, Meterpreter, DeepAudit

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-0995, CVE-2021-3156, CVE-2015-5287, CVE-2015-3246, CVE-2010-3904, CVE-2022-0847, CVE-2022-27925, CVE-2021-23758, CVE-2021-29441, CVE-2021-29442, CVE-2019-18935

Attribution

China, per Cisco Talos (confidence not stated)

Genians Security Center documented the North Korea-linked Kimsuky group using AI-generated decoy documents and experimenting with local LLM tools (Ollama, GPT4All, Msty) in an ongoing campaign dubbed Operation GitPower. The actor uses LNK files, obfuscated PowerShell, and GitHub-hosted repositories as C2 to distribute AsyncRAT payloads disguised as PNG images, targeting diplomatic, military, and virtual asset sector

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Kimsuky

Malware

AsyncRAT, FlowerPower, Operation GitPower

Attribution

North Korea, per Genians Security Center (confidence not stated)

Sophos's 2026 AI Security Report details a real-world case, tracked as STAC6994, where about a dozen AI agents built and tested EDR evasion malware across parallel VMs, compressing weeks of development into days, before the operator deployed ransomware and stole data. The report also covers AI supply-chain attacks, underground AI infrastructure sales, and exploit timelines outpacing patching.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

STAC6994, IRON TWILIGHT (APT28), The Gentlemen, DragonForce

Malware

LameHug, MacSync, Sliver

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-10520, CVE-2026-42208

Attribution

China, per Anthropic (confidence not stated)

Darkatlas documents Iran-linked APT42/TA453 activity including the SpearSpecter campaign, which uses search-ms and WebDAV abuse to deliver an expanded TAMECAT backdoor with browser cookie theft and multi-channel C2 via HTTPS, Discord and Telegram. The report also describes APT42 incorporating generative AI into reconnaissance, persona and pretext creation, translation, and malware development.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

APT42, TA453, RedKitten

Malware

TAMECAT, SpearSpecter

Attribution

Iran, per Darkatlas (confidence not stated)

Zscaler Threat Hunting found threat actors abusing shared Claude chat links, disguised with an 'Apple Support' display name, to host ClickFix instructions that install MacSync Stealer on macOS via malvertising. The malware steals keychains, browser data, crypto wallets and files, then exfiltrates and self-deletes to avoid detection. Russian-language code comments suggest a Russian-speaking actor; the campaign ran Jun

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

MacSync Stealer

Attribution

Russia, per Zscaler Threat Hunting (low confidence)

Hunt.io researchers found an open directory tied to TencShell C2 infrastructure showing suspected China-linked operators using Claude Code and DeepSeek-v4-pro to handle exploit reasoning, session persistence, and phishing page creation during live intrusions. Victims included government and critical infrastructure targets in Afghanistan, Thailand, and Taiwan, with reconnaissance against U.S. government portals and sc

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

TencShell, Vshell, ARL, DeepAudit, Gshell, HSEWH-Ur

Attribution

China, per Hunt.io (low confidence)

Elastic Security Labs documented REF6045, an operator-assisted banking fraud campaign using ClickFix fake-CAPTCHA lures to install a PowerShell toolkit called SCMBANKER against Mexican bank, fintech, and crypto exchange customers. The toolkit enables session monitoring, screenshots, vishing overlays, clipboard hijacking, and RAT deployment, and its scripts show artifacts suggesting an LLM was used to write most of th

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

SCMBANKER, Remote Utilities

Attribution

not-stated, per Elastic Security Labs (confidence not stated)

Flare researchers describe an underground forum advertisement for 'Mycelium Framework,' a botnet claiming to classify infected machines by compute, GPU, stolen AI API keys and local models, then route AI inference, social engineering and other tasks accordingly. No source code or proof of execution was provided, and most individual techniques are previously documented, so the AI-as-a-service claims remain unverified.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Mycelium Framework, Mirai, TeamTNT, DorkBot, RageBot, Phorpiex, IRCBot.HI

Vulnerability

CVE-2021-22205

Sysdig's Threat Research Team documented what they assess to be the first fully agentic ransomware operation, dubbed JADEPUFFER, where an LLM autonomously gained access via a Langflow RCE flaw, harvested credentials, exploited Nacos authentication bypasses, and encrypted and destroyed a victim's production database for extortion. The payloads showed self-narrating reasoning and adaptive retries with no human interven

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

JADEPUFFER

Malware

JADEPUFFER

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-3248, CVE-2021-29441

FortiGuard Labs documented a multi-stage Windows malware campaign using fake AI-themed documents and guides as lures to deliver AsyncRAT via AutoHotkey-based loaders and process hollowing. Chinese-language code artifacts and structured coding style suggest the attackers used generative AI tools to help build the malware, though this is inferred rather than confirmed.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

AsyncRAT, AutoHotkey, clay_Client

Anthropic analyzed 832 accounts banned for malicious cyber activity between March 2025 and March 2026, mapping their techniques to MITRE ATT&CK. They found AI use shifting from initial access to post-compromise activity, risk scores rising over time, and the framework failing to capture autonomous agentic orchestration seen in a November 2025 state-sponsored espionage case.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Claude Code

A solo Russian-speaking threat actor ran a 5-year MAGA-themed Telegram influence channel and, starting September 2025, used a jailbroken Google Gemini to automate content creation, manage infrastructure, rotate stolen API keys, and run a QAnon-styled fraud chatbot. The campaign combined credential theft, a fake crypto wallet RAT, and a token scheme, showing AI can lower the cost of running influence and fraud operati

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

bandcampro

Malware

GoToResolve, StellarMonster, Quantum Patriot, QFS 2.0 Terminal

Attribution

Russia, per Trend Micro (medium confidence)

GTIG reports adversaries applying AI to vulnerability exploitation, initial access and faster development of evasive, polymorphic malware. It also covers supply chain attacks against AI components, and notes no actor has yet bypassed the core safety logic of frontier models.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Trend Micro identified two campaigns, SHADOW-AETHER-040 and SHADOW-AETHER-064, using agentic AI (including Claude) to drive intrusions from initial access to data exfiltration against government and financial targets in Mexico and Brazil. The AI agents dynamically generated custom tools and backdoors, used jailbreaking via fake red-team pretexts, and integrated with Shodan and VulDB for reconnaissance.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

SHADOW-AETHER-040, SHADOW-AETHER-064

Malware

Chisel, Neo-reGeorg, CrackMapExec, Impacket, implante_http, ProxyChains, PetitPotam

Researchers describe ATHR, a crimeware platform sold for $4,000 plus 10% of profits that combines AI voice agents, spoofed lure emails, and live phishing panels to automate telephone-oriented attack delivery (TOAD) scams. Its AI vishing agents run scripted social engineering calls targeting crypto and email brand users, letting one operator run multi-brand campaigns without trained callers.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

ATHR

Gambit Security's forensic report describes a single operator who used Claude Code and OpenAI's GPT-4.1 as core operational tools to breach nine Mexican government organizations and exfiltrate hundreds of millions of records between December 2025 and February 2026. Recovered materials show over 400 custom attack scripts, 20 tailored exploits, and thousands of AI-generated commands used to compress attack timelines an

Category

AI-Enabled

Attribution

Mexico, per Gambit Security (confidence not stated)

IBM X-Force found a likely AI-generated PowerShell C2 backdoor, dubbed Slopoly, deployed by ransomware group Hive0163 during a live intrusion using ClickFix, NodeSnake, InterlockRAT and Interlock ransomware. The malware is technically unremarkable but shows guardrail bypass and signals adoption of AI-assisted malware development among established ransomware actors.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

Hive0163, ITG23, TA569, TAG-124

Malware

Slopoly, NodeSnake, InterlockRAT, Interlock, JunkFiction, Broomstick, Supper, PortStarter

Moonlock Lab documented a campaign using fake venture capital personas on LinkedIn to lure crypto professionals into spoofed Zoom/Meet pages running a ClickFix fake CAPTCHA that tricks victims into executing clipboard-injected commands, deploying cross-platform malware. Fake company sites used AI-generated headshots for fabricated staff, and infrastructure overlaps with DPRK-linked UNC1069, though attribution remains

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

Mykhailo Hureiev, Anatolli Bigdasch, UNC1069

Attribution

North Korea, per Moonlock Lab (low confidence)

OpenAI's case studies show models used as one step in larger workflows that also rely on websites and social accounts: romance and recovery scams, covert influence operations, and a state-linked harassment effort.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actor

Rybar

Also covered byHelp Net Security

Researchers found an exposed server revealing a threat actor using a custom MCP server (ARXON) with DeepSeek and Claude Code to automate reconnaissance, attack planning, and exploitation of compromised FortiGate devices across thousands of targets in over 100 countries. The actor evolved from using open-source HexStrike MCP tooling in December 2025 to fully custom orchestration (ARXON and CHECKER2) by February 2026,

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

ARXON, CHECKER2, HexStrike, ntlmrelayx.py, Impacket, Metasploit, BloodHound, Nuclei

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-6693, CVE-2026-24061, CVE-2025-33073, CVE-2023-27532, CVE-2019-7192

Amazon Threat Intelligence documented a Russian-speaking, financially motivated actor using multiple commercial LLMs to compromise over 600 FortiGate devices in 55+ countries via exposed management interfaces and weak credentials, not exploits. AI generated attack plans, custom Go/Python tooling, and reconnaissance scripts, letting a low-skill actor achieve broad operational scale, though it still failed against hard

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Ed1s0nZ

Malware

Meterpreter, mimikatz, gogo, Nuclei, CyberStrikeAI, PrivHunterAI, InfiltrateX, watermark-tool

Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-7192, CVE-2023-27532, CVE-2024-40711

Also covered byTeam Cymru

ESET found PromptSpy, Android malware that queries Google's Gemini with UI XML dumps to get step-by-step instructions for locking itself into the recent apps list, aiding persistence. The malware also deploys a VNC module for remote device control and targets users in Argentina; no live samples have been seen in telemetry, suggesting it may still be a proof of concept.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

PromptSpy, VNCSpy, PromptLock, Android.Phantom, Android/Phishing.Agent.M

Attribution

China, per ESET (medium confidence)

Quarterly view of how actors linked to North Korea, Iran, China and Russia used AI in late 2025. GTIG saw no breakthrough capability, but disrupted frequent model extraction attempts against its own models.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Attribution

North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, per Google Threat Intelligence Group (confidence not stated)

Also covered byGoogle

Unit 42 researchers built a proof of concept where a benign-looking webpage queries trusted LLM APIs like DeepSeek and Gemini at runtime to generate and assemble phishing JavaScript in the victim's browser, bypassing network detection and guardrails through prompt engineering. This produces polymorphic, brand-impersonating phishing pages with no static malicious payload, though the technique was not observed used by

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

LogoKit

Huntress found that attackers used SEO poisoning to push fake ChatGPT and Grok shared conversations, hosted on legitimate OpenAI and xAI domains, to the top of Google results for common Mac troubleshooting queries. Victims who followed the AI-generated Terminal instructions were infected with an AMOS stealer variant that harvests credentials, escalates to root, and persists via a LaunchDaemon watchdog.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

AMOS, Atomic macOS Stealer

Unit 42 examines two commercialized malicious LLMs, WormGPT and KawaiiGPT, sold or freely distributed to cybercriminals for generating phishing, BEC lures, ransomware code and ransom notes. Testing showed WormGPT 4 producing functional PowerShell ransomware scripts and KawaiiGPT crafting convincing spear-phishing content, lowering technical barriers for less-skilled attackers.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

WormGPT, WormGPT 4, KawaiiGPT

Netskope Threat Labs tested whether GPT-3.5-Turbo, GPT-4 and preliminary GPT-5 could be prompted or jailbroken into generating malicious code for process injection and VM detection. They found guardrails could be bypassed with role-based prompt injection but generated code was often unreliable, especially against cloud VDI, though GPT-5 showed marked improvement. This is proof-of-concept research, not an observed rea

Category

AI-Enabled

A group tasked Claude Code with running intrusions against roughly 30 organisations, with the model carrying out an estimated 80 to 90 percent of tactical work. Anthropic validated a handful of successful compromises before banning the accounts.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actors

GTG-1002, Chinese state-sponsored group

Malware

Claude Code

Attribution

China, per Anthropic (high confidence)

Also covered byAnthropic

GTIG documents the first malware families that query an LLM during execution to generate scripts and rewrite their own code. It also describes actors posing as students or researchers to talk Gemini past its safeguards.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actor

APT28

Malware

PROMPTFLUX, PROMPTSTEAL

Volexity documents UTA0388, a China-aligned actor running spear phishing campaigns since June 2025 that deploy the GOVERSHELL backdoor via search order hijacking. Volexity assesses with high confidence the group used LLMs, later confirmed by OpenAI, to assist phishing content and malware development, and links the group to Proofpoint's previously reported UNK_DropPitch/HealthKick activity.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

UTA0388, UNK_DropPitch

Malware

GOVERSHELL, HealthKick, Tablacus Explorer

Attribution

China, per Volexity (high confidence)

OpenAI details banned accounts tied to state actors and criminal groups that used ChatGPT for malware development, scams and surveillance tooling. It reports no evidence that its models gave attackers novel offensive capability.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

Russian-speaking criminal groups, North Korean (DPRK) actors

Malware

XenoRAT

Also covered byIT BrewOpenAI

ESET details DeceptiveDevelopment, a North Korea-aligned group using fake recruiter profiles and ClickFix social engineering to deliver malware like BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret, OtterCookie, WeaselStore and TsunamiKit to job-seeking developers across Windows, Linux and macOS. The group is closely linked to North Korean IT worker campaigns (WageMole) that use AI-driven tools to fabricate synthetic identities to secure

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

DeceptiveDevelopment, WageMole, Contagious Interview, DEV#POPPER, Void Dokkaebi, Lazarus

Malware

BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret, OtterCookie, WeaselStore, GolangGhost, FlexibleFerret, PylangGhost, TsunamiKit

Attribution

North Korea, per ESET Research (high confidence)

SentinelLABS hunted for binaries carrying LLM API keys and embedded prompts, and found MalTerminal, which asks GPT-4 to write ransomware or a reverse shell at runtime. A retired API endpoint dates it before November 2023. No live use is known.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

MalTerminal

Genians Security Center documented a July 2025 spear-phishing campaign impersonating a South Korean military ID office, where the attacker used ChatGPT to generate a fake military employee ID image, verified via metadata and deepfake detection tools. The email delivered obfuscated LNK and batch scripts leading to an AutoIt-based backdoor for persistence and C2 communication.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

AutoIt3, config.bin, HncUpdateTray.exe

Kaspersky reports that RevengeHotels (TA558), a hotel-targeting phishing group, now uses LLM-generated code in its JavaScript loaders and PowerShell downloaders to deliver VenomRAT. The campaign targets Brazilian and Spanish-speaking hotels via invoice-themed phishing emails, showing how a known criminal group is adopting AI to build malware components.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

RevengeHotels, TA558

Malware

VenomRAT, QuasarRAT, RevengeRAT, NanoCoreRAT, NjRAT, 888 RAT, ProCC, XWorm

Vulnerability

CVE-2017-0199

Introduces vibe hacking: one criminal used Claude Code to run data extortion against at least 17 organisations. Other cases cover North Korean remote worker fraud, ransomware sold by a developer with little coding skill, and AI across the fraud ecosystem.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actor

North Korean IT workers

Malware

Claude Code, Claude

Attribution

North Korea, China, per Anthropic (confidence not stated)

Also covered byAnthropic

PromptLock runs OpenAI's gpt-oss-20b locally through Ollama to generate Lua scripts that enumerate, exfiltrate and encrypt files. ESET later confirmed the samples match an academic prototype, not malware deployed in attacks.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

PromptLock

Kaspersky researchers describe how scammers now use AI tools such as DeepSeek to write convincing phishing text, AI-generated voices and deepfakes for fake celebrity giveaways and bank impersonation calls, and OSINT AI tools to personalize attacks. The report also covers new evasion techniques like blob URLs, Google Translate proxying, and Telegram bot abuse, and a shift toward stealing biometric and signature data.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

DeepSeek

CERT-UA reported that APT28 (UAC-0001) used LameHug, a Python malware delivered via phishing that queries the Qwen 2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct model through the Hugging Face API to generate Windows recon and exfiltration commands. This is described as one of the first publicly documented cases of malware using an LLM to dynamically generate attack commands against Ukrainian defense sector targets. Guardsix summarizes the

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

APT28, UAC-0001, Forest Blizzard

Malware

LAMEHUG, LameHug, AI_generator_uncensored_Canvas_PRO_v0.9.exe, image.py

Attribution

Russia, per CERT-UA (medium confidence)

Also covered byThe Hacker News

Talos researchers document cybercriminals using uncensored LLMs, custom criminal LLMs like FraudGPT and WormGPT, and jailbreak techniques to write malware, phishing content and scan for vulnerabilities. The report also covers attacks against LLMs themselves, including pickle-based backdoored models on Hugging Face and RAG poisoning risks. Talos found that FraudGPT's seller was actually running a cryptocurrency scam r

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

CanadianKingpin12

Malware

GhostGPT, WormGPT, DarkGPT, DarkestGPT, FraudGPT, WhiteRabbitNeo, Llama 2 Uncensored, OnionGPT

Zscaler researchers found threat actors using Black Hat SEO to rank fake AI-themed websites (mimicking tools like ChatGPT and Luma AI) highly in search results. Victims who click through are fingerprinted and redirected through multiple layers to download malware including Vidar, Lumma Stealer and Legion Loader, often bundled in oversized installers to evade sandboxes.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Vidar, Lumma, Legion Loader, Legion Loader

EclecticIQ documents pro-Kremlin group Storm-1516 using AI-generated images and videos to falsely accuse Macron, Starmer, Merz and Zelensky of cocaine use, aiming to undermine European unity ahead of Istanbul peace talks. The campaign was amplified by Storm-1516-linked X accounts and Russian MFA official Maria Zakharova, and relied on generative AI to fabricate visuals rapidly for viral spread.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Storm-1516

Attribution

Russia, per EclecticIQ (high confidence)

Unit 42 shows that North Korean IT worker operatives are using real-time deepfake tools during job interviews to create synthetic identities and evade detection. A researcher with no prior experience built a passable real-time deepfake in about 70 minutes using cheap hardware and free tools, illustrating low barriers to this technique. The report also outlines technical artifacts and HR/security mitigations to detect

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

North Korean IT workers, DPRK

Malware

Wagemole, BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret

Attribution

North Korea, per Unit 42, Palo Alto Networks (high confidence)

Anthropic disrupted an influence-as-a-service operation that used Claude to manage over 100 social media personas across X and Facebook, making tactical decisions on engagement and generating image prompts. The operation served at least four distinct clients pushing narratives on European, Iranian, UAE, and Kenyan interests, prioritizing persistence and relationship-building over viral spread. No nation-state attribu

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Claude

Also covered byAnthropic

Abnormal Security researchers identified GhostGPT, an uncensored chatbot sold via Telegram that likely wraps a jailbroken ChatGPT or open-source LLM to remove safety guardrails. It is marketed to generate phishing emails, BEC templates, malware code and exploits, lowering the skill barrier for cybercriminals. Researchers tested it by having it produce a convincing Docusign phishing email template.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

GhostGPT, WormGPT, WolfGPT, EscapeGPT

GTIG's first analysis of how government-backed groups used Gemini. Actors from Iran, China, North Korea and Russia used it for research, coding help and content, and did not develop novel capabilities with it.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actor

APT43

Attribution

Iran, China, North Korea, Russia, per Google Threat Intelligence Group (confidence not stated)

Also covered byTechTarget

Knostic researchers describe a proof-of-concept red team method using an LLM to build a psychological profile and a fake persona ('Adversarial Digital Twin') from a target's social media data, then jailbreak the LLM's guardrails to generate rapport-building conversations for social engineering. The technique was demonstrated in a controlled exercise, not observed in the wild, but shows how LLMs could lower the skill

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Dark Gemini, Maltego

Unit 42 researchers identified a large network of scam websites using deepfake videos of public figures like Elon Musk and various world leaders to promote fake investment schemes and government giveaways across multiple languages and countries. Infrastructure analysis of hundreds of domains, averaging 114,000 visits each, suggests a single threat actor group behind these long-running campaigns.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Quantum AI

Microsoft researchers describe Black Basta's shifting initial access techniques across several malware loaders, then discuss how state-sponsored actors used LLMs via OpenAI accounts. Microsoft and OpenAI disrupted five state-affiliated accounts used for tasks like translation, coding help, and open-source research, consistent with actors' existing goals rather than new capabilities.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

Black Basta, Storm-506, Storm-1811, Storm-464, Storm-450, Forest Blizzard, Emerald Sleet, Strawberry Tempest

Malware

Qakbot, Pikabot, DarkGate, IcedID, TeamsPhisher, BatLoader, ZLoader, Cobalt Strike

Attribution

Russia, North Korea, per Microsoft (confidence not stated)

Trend Micro documented a malvertising campaign that hijacks Facebook pages, rebrands them as the AI photo editor Evoto, and lures victims to download a disguised ITarian RMM installer. Once enrolled, the tool downloads Lumma Stealer and disables Windows Defender scanning to exfiltrate credentials, wallets and browser data. AI branding is used purely as a lure, not as an offensive capability.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Lumma Stealer, PackLab Crypter, ITarian

Trend Micro research documents new cybercrime underground tools including deepfake generators (DeepNude Pro, SwapFace, VideoCallSpoofer) and re-emerging malicious LLM services like WormGPT and DarkBERT with added multimodal capabilities. Many advertised jailbreak LLM services are actually thin wrappers around commercial models, and adoption of these tools by criminals remains relatively slow.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

DeepNude Pro, Deepfake 3D Pro, Deepfake AI, SwapFace, VideoCallSpoofer, WormGPT, DarkBERT, DarkGemini

Mandiant describes how attackers use AI voice cloning for vishing, including a red team case study where a cloned executive voice tricked an employee into bypassing security warnings and executing malware. It also cites a reported HK$200 million deepfake scam and offers mitigation guidance like code words and source verification.

Category

AI-Enabled

FBI, CNMF, and allied agencies detail Meliorator, an AI-enhanced tool used by RT affiliates to mass-create fake social media personas that spread Russian disinformation on X. The software auto-generates biographical data and AI profile photos, bypasses two-factor authentication, and obfuscates IP addresses to evade detection.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

RT

Malware

Meliorator, Brigadir, Taras, Faker

Attribution

Russia, per FBI, CNMF, AIVD, MIVD, DNP, CCCS (high confidence)

Google's TAG reports on DRAGONBRIDGE, a PRC-linked influence operation, disrupting over 10,000 instances in Q1 2024 across YouTube and Blogger, totaling 175,000 lifetime. The actor increasingly used generative AI, including AI-generated news anchors and synthetic voiceovers, to push narratives around Taiwan's election and US social issues, though engagement remained largely inauthentic and low.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

DRAGONBRIDGE

Attribution

China, per Google Threat Analysis Group (high confidence)

OpenAI describes disrupting five covert influence operations from Russia, China, Iran and an Israeli commercial firm that used its models to generate and refine content, translate text, and fake engagement across social platforms. None of the operations achieved meaningful audience engagement, scoring no higher than Category 2 on the Breakout Scale.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

Bad Grammar, Doppelganger, Spamouflage, International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM), Zero Zeno, STOIC

Attribution

Russia, China, Iran, Israel, per OpenAI (confidence not stated)

Also covered byOpenAI

Microsoft and OpenAI published the first joint account of state-affiliated groups using LLMs, mostly for reconnaissance, scripting help and social engineering content. The accounts were disabled.

Category

AI-Enabled

Marker

Must-read

Actors

Forest Blizzard, Emerald Sleet, Crimson Sandstorm, Charcoal Typhoon, Salmon Typhoon

Attribution

Russia, North Korea, Iran, China, per Microsoft (confidence not stated)

Also covered byOpenAI

A Hong Kong firm reportedly lost $25 million after fraudsters used deepfake video conferencing to impersonate its CFO and authorize a funds transfer. The article analyzes how accessible AI tools enable such scams and recommends process and Zero Trust improvements to prevent similar fraud.

Category

AI-Enabled

Recorded Future's Insikt Group documented the Russia-linked Doppelganger influence network using obfuscation techniques and likely generative AI to produce fake news articles impersonating outlets in Ukraine, the US, and Germany. The campaigns aimed to sway public opinion around elections, military support for Ukraine, and social divisions, showing AI's growing role in influence operations.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Doppelgänger

Attribution

Russia, per Insikt Group (confidence not stated)

Researchers analyzed WormGPT and FraudGPT, malicious LLM tools sold on underground forums since mid-2023 for writing malware, phishing emails and scam pages. Testing showed that properly prompted ChatGPT could produce comparable outputs to WormGPT samples, suggesting these tools offer limited advantage over jailbreaking mainstream models. Underground forums also show growing interest in attacking AI systems.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

last/laste

Malware

WormGPT, FraudGPT, ChatGPT

Netenrich researchers found FraudGPT, a malicious AI chatbot sold on dark web marketplaces and Telegram since July 2023, marketed for phishing emails, malware creation, and finding vulnerable sites. The tool costs $200 monthly to $1,700 yearly and has reportedly seen over 3,000 sales, illustrating criminal adoption of uncensored AI tools for offensive operations.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

canadiankingpin12

Malware

FraudGPT, WormGPT

Unit 42 identified Android malware impersonating ChatGPT apps, including a Meterpreter Trojan disguised as a 'SuperGPT' app for remote access and fake ChatGPT apps that send SMS messages to premium-rate Thai numbers to charge victims. The malware exploits ChatGPT's popularity to trick users into downloading malicious apps outside official channels.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

Hax4Us

Malware

Meterpreter, SuperGPT

Attribution

India, per Unit 42 (low confidence)

Recorded Future reports that voice cloning technology, such as ElevenLabs, is being abused by threat actors to defeat voice-based MFA, spread disinformation, and enhance social engineering. It notes the rise of voice-cloning-as-a-service tools sold on Telegram and increased dark web references to voice cloning since 2020.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

ElevenLabs

Check Point Research found cybercriminals bypassing ChatGPT's content restrictions by using the OpenAI API directly, which lacked the abuse safeguards of the web interface. They advertised Telegram bots and scripts in underground forums to generate phishing emails and malware code, including improving a basic 2019 infostealer.

Category

AI-Enabled

Malware

Infostealer

Recorded Future documents cybercriminals on dark web and special-access forums using ChatGPT within weeks of its launch to write malware, phishing lures, scam schemes, and fraudulent freelance content. Actors like 0x27 and USDoD leveraged media coverage of ChatGPT abuse to boost their forum reputation, while others sought unverified accounts to bypass registration controls.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actors

0x27, USDoD, MrK, Lorensaire

Check Point Research documents underground forum posts from late 2022 where cybercriminals used ChatGPT to write an infostealer, a multi-encryption script that could be modified into ransomware, and code for dark web marketplace tools. The actors, including one dubbed USDoD, had limited coding skills, showing AI lowers the barrier for less skilled threat actors to create malicious tools.

Category

AI-Enabled

Actor

USDoD

Malware

SpyNote